Monitoring events in Balochistan, CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), China's Belt and Road Initiative and it's economic and strategic implications, Pakistan Military operations and ongoing Baloch struggle.News and Reports are collected from open sources to raise awareness among scholars, researchers and public in general.

Search This Blog

Game changer: not for all

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the groundwork for which began during the Pakistan Peoples Party’s tenure, will come under the command of the third government soon enough.

Since its inception, the project has been hailed as the harbinger of economic growth and prosperity — by the civil and the military leadership as well as the mainstream media. The popular opinion has remained reflective of the notion that the project under the Belt and Road Initiative will open new avenues of development for the much impoverished province of the country, Balochistan, where Gwadar, one of the CPEC’s flagship projects, lies.

However, alongside, the debate and disagreement over provinces getting to reap equal benefits out of CPEC have always existed. Recent statistics by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs reveal that the disbursement of over 90 per cent of the funds, received under CPEC, to three major projects falling on the eastern belt of the projects only adds to the scepticism. The projects, Thakot-Havelian Highway, Sukkur-Multan Motorway and Lahore’s Orange Line Train Project, have received 1.6 billion dollars, which is 90 per cent of the total funds disbursed during the last fiscal year of 2017-18.

Similar to the controversial NFC award, with the current fund allocation formula of CPEC, it can be easily ascertained that the smaller and less-developed provinces are unlikely to witness the scale of development like that in Punjab and Sindh. Moreover, with the social sector initiatives receiving a cold response from the parent financing country, China, there will remain a vacuum in the social sector. Hence, the economic advantage will not seep down to the micro level, particularly in the case of rural and less-developed areas.

Most importantly, the burden of the repayment of loans will be unfairly distributed among the provinces, that is, a repayment formula which is disproportionate to the funds received and employed in various projects. With many of the projects still awaiting completion and China supporting Pakistan’s dwindling economic growth via repayable loans and CPEC, much can still be done to spread out the benefits of the project to other provinces.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25th, 2018.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1765743/6-game-changer-not/

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Other Apps

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Other Apps

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“ Commando Muddassir Iqbal was part of the team who conducted Army Public School operation on 16 December 2014. In this video he reveals that he along with other commandos was ordered to kill the innocent children inside school, when asked why should they kill children after killing all the terrorist he was told that it would be a chance to defame Taliban and get nation on the side. He and all other commandos killed children and later Taliban was blamed.
Muddassir Iqbal has deserted the military and now he is with mujahedeen somewhere in AF PAK border area”
For authenticity of this tape journalists can easy reach to his home town to interview his family members or ISPR as he reveals his army service number”
Asalam o Alaikum: My name is Muddassir Iqbal. My father’s name is Naimat Ali. I belong to Sialkot divison (Punjab province), my village is Shamsher Poor and district, tehsil and post office Narowal. Unfortunately I was working in Pakistan army. I feel embarrassed to tell you …

The Rise of China-Europe RailwaysMarch 6, 2018The Dawn of a New Commercial Era?For over two millennia, technology and politics have shaped trade across the Eurasian supercontinent. The compass and domesticated camels helped the “silk routes” emerge between 200 and 400 CE, and peaceful interactions between the Han and Hellenic empires allowed overland trade to flourish. A major shift occurred in the late fifteenth century, when the invention of large ocean-going vessels and new navigation methods made maritime trade more competitive. Mercantilism and competition among Europe’s colonial powers helped pull commerce to the coastlines. Since then, commerce between Asia and Europe has traveled primarily by sea.1Against this historical backdrop, new railway services between China and Europe have emerged rapidly. Just 10 years ago, regular direct freight services from China to Europe did not exist.2 Today, they connect roughly 35 Chinese…